Google

About 1.4 billion devices around the world now use the Android mobile operating system, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The figure is up from the 1 billion that Google announced in May. Pichai said many of those users are in emerging economies such as Vietnam and Indonesia. The US Census Bureau estimates about 7.3 billion people live around the world, which means Google has extended the reach of its Android software to more than 19 percent of the Earth's inhabitants.

Chromebooks are more powerful than you realize already, but zooming around the web in Google’s browser is just the beginning of what Chromebooks are capable of.

Chrome OS is built on top of the Linux kernel, and you can install a full Linux environment alongside Chrome OS on your Chromebook. This gives you access to Steam and over a thousand PC games, Minecraft, Skype, and everything else that runs on desktop Linux.

Google released the second version of their Cardboard VR viewer back in May. Sticking to their commitment to make the design of the handheld HMD completely open for third-party manufacturers, the company has now released the complete design specification for Cardboard v2.

I went shopping for a laptop yesterday, with a fairly high budget and thoughts of a new MacBook, but came home with a $300 Toshiba Chromebook 2 instead. Now obviously a Chomebook gives up something to any Mac in terms of capability but my decision was possible because my laptop isn’t my primary workstation. That being said the new generation of Chromebooks represent a great value and a huge leap in quality over my first-gen Acer C720. With it’s elegant design and amazing display (IPS up to 2400×1350) most casual observers wouldn’t know that you weren’t using a Mac.

GNOME's Debarshi Ray announced the release and immediate availability for download and testing of the second Beta build of the upcoming GNOME Online Accounts software, a core component of the GNOME 3.18 Beta 2 desktop environment.

GNOME 3.18 is going to be another milestone in our journey to bring various online services closer to the desktop, but this is one that took us 6 years to reach. You can now access your Google Drive through your favourite GNOME applications and the usual GIO APIs

The GNOME project has taken some very important steps towards proper integration of Google Drive straight into the operating system, and it looks like we're going to be able to use it in just a few months.

After seven years of development, Google continues its rapid pace of release and enhancement for its Chrome browser. On the seventh anniversary of the first Chrome public release on September 2, Google released Chrome stable version 45 and Chrome beta 46.

Google Chrome debuted on September 2, 2008 after months of speculation about Google's intentions regarding entering the browser market. The first Chrome browser entered the market at a time when Microsoft's IE still dominated, though Firefox was making a dent in that market share. Today, according to multiple sets of stats, including Statcounter, Google Chrome stands as the world's most popular web browser.

After announcing the promotion of the Google Chrome 45 web browser to the stable channel on September 1, Google pushed earlier today, September 2, the Chrome 46 web browser to the Beta channel for testers worldwide.

The non-profit organization called The Linux Foundation has announced that they are offering free Chromebooks to all students who enroll in their Linux training program during the month of September 2015.

Asus’s new Chromebook Flip isn’t the first touchscreen Chromebook we’ve fondled here at The Register. That accolade belongs to the Lenovo N20p. But since the N20p has been discontinued in the UK, Asus needn't worry about its new convertible being overshadowed by it.

“Everyone has their Chrome OS.” That’s a theory a co-worker and I came up with, hypothesizing that everyone has that niche piece of technology that they unabashedly love. For my co-worker, that’s Windows Phone, but for me, my “Chrome OS” is, in fact, Chrome OS. Despite all the jeers and sneers I get on a weekly basis, I wanted to prove just how useful Chrome OS actually is. For all the naysayers who claim you can’t do work on a Chromebook, I’m here to tell you that you can – to a point. Here’s what happened when I spent a month using only Chrome OS.

I have to confess: I sort of hate laptops. It’s a thing with me. I have so many customisations and tweaks on my Windows desktop that using a laptop either feels like a crippled experience, or a hassle managing two separate computers. I also don’t tend to buy expensive laptops because I don’t use them often enough to make the price tag worth it. It’s safe to say that my experience will not reflect everyone’s needs.

A few moments ago, renowned Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman had the pleasure of announcing the general availability of the Linux kernel 4.8.13 and Linux kernel 4.4.37 LTS maintenance updates.
While many rolling GNU/Linux distributions have just received the Linux 4.8.12 kernel, it looks like Linux kernel 4.8.13 is now available with more improvements and bug fixes, but it's not a major milestone. According to the appended shortlog and the diff since last week's Linux 4.8.12 kernel release, a total of 46 files were changed, with 214 insertions and 95 deletions.

openSUSE's Douglas DeMaio reports on the latest Open Source and GNU/Linux technologies that landed in the repositories of the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling operating system.

What Is A VPN Connection? Why To Use VPN?

We all have heard about VPN sometime. Most of us normal users of internet use it. To bypass the region based restrictions of services like Netflix or Youtube ( Yes, youtube has geo- restrictions too). In fact, VPN is actually mostly used for this purpose only. ​

The Libreboot C201 from Minifree is really really really ridiculously open source

Open source laptops – ones not running any commercial software whatsoever – have been the holy grail for free software fans for years. Now, with the introduction of libreboot, a truly open source boot firmware, the dream is close to fruition.
The $730 laptop is a bog standard piece of hardware but it contains only open source software. The OS, Debian, is completely open source and to avoid closed software the company has added an Atheros Wi-Fi dongle with open source drivers rather than use the built-in Wi-Fi chip.